Gary Brown serves as a Professor of Cyber Law at the College of Information and Cyberspace, National Defense University. Previously, he worked as a Cyber Policy and Strategy Analyst for the U.S. Department of Defense Joint Staff J5 Cyber Policy Division. Before that, he was Professor of Cyber Security at Marine Corps University, Quantico, Virginia and Head of Communications and Congressional Affairs for the Washington Delegation, International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). He was with the ICRC from 2012-2015. Prior to joining the ICRC, he served 24 years as a judge advocate with the United States Air Force. Colonel Brown deployed twice to the Middle East during his Air Force career, the second time for a year at the Combined Air Operations Center, Southwest Asia as the senior legal advisor for combat air operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. In his final military assignment he was the first senior legal counsel for U.S. Cyber Command, Fort Meade, Maryland, where he served for three years.
Professor Brown speaks on cyber operations law and policy, and has authored several articles and book chapters related to cyber warfare, including “State Cyberspace Operations: Proposing a Cyber Response Framework,” RUSI Occasional Paper (2020); “Addressing Cyber-Enabled Information Operations,” RUSI Newsbrief (2020); “Commentary on the law of cyber operations and the DoD Law of War Manual,” in The United States Department of Defense Law of War Manual Commentary and Critique (2018); “Spying and Fighting in Cyberspace,” Journal of Nat’l Security Law & Policy (2016); “Easier Said Than Done: Legal Reviews of Cyber Weapons,” Journal of Nat’l Security Law & Policy (2014) (coauthor); “Why Iran Didn’t Admit Stuxnet Was an Attack,” Joint Forces Quarterly (2011); and “Cyberwarfare: Ways, Warriors and Weapons of Mass Destruction, Military Review (1999) (coauthor). He was the official U.S. observer to the drafting of the Tallinn Manual on the International Law Applicable to Cyber Warfare (2013) and a contributing author and member of the International Group of Experts for the second edition of the Tallinn Manual.
Among other cyber-related projects, Professor Brown has been active in the educational uses of cyber wargames, consulting on the design of games to train, and advocating the inclusion of law of armed conflict concepts in recreational games. He was the on-camera law of cyber warfare expert in the documentary film Zero Days, and has been interviewed on NBC Nightly News and National Public Radio’s All Things Considered. Mr. Brown has a law degree from the University of Nebraska and an LL.M. in international law from Cambridge University. He is a Senior Associate Fellow at the Royal United Services Institute in the UK.